2025: December 21: Winter Has Begun

It's the first day of winter here in the northern hemisphere. Sunset today will be at 4.35pm and sunrise tomorrow is 7.29 am. I thought holiday lights were tacky until I came north and realized just how bleak and gray and dull and cold the shortest days are up here. The various festivals of light suddenly made so much sense. Now I welcome holiday decorations as the bright colorful bringers of joy and hope that they are. We've had a bitterly cold December, temperatures rarely above freezing for weeks, so the promised return of the sun will be most welcome, even though it won't be warm for months. I understand how various cultures thought they needed to do a deal with the gods to make sure the sun did come back. Yet I'm not at all a daylight-savings-all-year-round person. That, honestly, is a position that can generally only be enjoyed by people who don't have to be at work until 9am, plus the history of daylight savings involves a big con played by the Chamber of Commerce in order to get Americans to spend more money after work. (If you don't believe me you can read Michael Downing's book, or maybe just this interview with him on PBS.) But, as I do so often, I digress. 

You want to know what else brings joy and color? The arrival of the high school music department citrus fundraiser. I used to be able to buy them from Ella every year, then she went off to college and the dark age of citrus began. But this year, a friend's child entered high school. They're in a different district, but apparently it is a tradition that transcends borders, so I ordered a Small Citrus Sampler. 

Each one a little glowing sun.

It reminds me of the boxes of grapefruit my Grandma Figg used to send from the sunny North Island every year down to us in frost-prone southern Dunedin. We'd eat them for breakfast and make marmalade, which I love. I'll probably just eat these straight, though. There's too much sugar in marmalade. 

Ooh, speaking of sugar, here's a sign I saw a few weeks ago in a local middle-school. Once you've sat in the back of a bunch of seventh-grade social studies lessons, this ban makes total sense. There's spillage, for one thing, plus do you have any idea how much energy thirteen-year-olds have when they're NOT amped up on caffeine and sugar? Lord knows they don't need more. 

God bless all middle-school teachers, now and forever.